


the spirit of the season

by mockingxcanary



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV) RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, ccss16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingxcanary/pseuds/mockingxcanary
Summary: Sara decides to show Leonard a different side of the holidays.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LarielRomeniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarielRomeniel/gifts).



> this horrible fic laid down at the feet of much greater writers.  
> i own nothing. i write shitty. <3 enter at your own risk.

 

Larielromeniel Prompt: Len’s never really celebrated Christmas. Sara wants to change that. Want: Romance, fluff, hurt/comfort Don’t want: Destiny, death, heavy angst 

  
Sara strode down the halls of the waverider with a bottle of whiskey hanging from her fingers and a smirk on her lips. It had been a rough week, and she wasn’t going to spend another moment wondering about the reason all of space and time seemed strategically stacked against the Waverider and her crew. Instead, she was going to drink with the Rogues and hopefully forget about the last pitfall they’d run into…

“What about Lisa?” Mick’s voice growled loudly from the cargo bay and Sara paused just out of sight.

“What about her?” Sara felt her eyebrow arch at Leonard’s even drawl. Even without seeing his expression, she could guess it— cold, detached, eyebrow arched.

Leaning against the wall, Sara uncorked the bottle of whiskey and took a swig, waiting for the response.

“You know how she is about the holidays, Snart.” Mick was probably giving that wide-eyed stare.

“… your point, Mick?” Sara rolled her eyes at the dispassionate tone in Leonard’s voice.

“Put your shit aside and do it for her.”

The sound of a chair being pushed back and someone approaching the open door had Sara straightening. When Leonard exited the room with clear agitation, he barely looked at her as he brushed passed.

Sara turned to watch him stride down the hallway before rounding the edge of the door and waggling the bottle. Mick shrugged in answer. Taking that as a ‘yes’ the blonde continued into the room.

“So… what was that all about?” Sara questioned after a second, offering him the bottle.

“Eavesdropping, Blondie?” He questioned with a hard look before upending the bottle and taking needy gulps.

“Judgement?” She quipped arching an eyebrow and snatching the bottle out of his grip.

He looked her over with a wild look in his eye before smiling, “Approval.” Mick corrected, stealing the bottle back.

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

“What do you have in mind, assassin?” Leonard drawled looking up from the book held in his long fingers.

Sara palmed into view the key to the jumpship with an arch of her eyebrow. He smirked and closed the book with a snap. “Promising,” he straightened until he was sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“Coming, then?” She quipped with a smirk turning and heading down the hallway. For a moment, she was worried that she hadn’t offered enough bait, but then she heard the firm strides of booted feet behind her.

Sara barely managed to push the smile off of her befor his longer strides had him walking beside her.

“I’m not going to miss an opportunity to upset the Captain.” Leonard smirked down at her in quiet response as she opened the door to the jumpship.

Sara tossed him a lopsided smile as she dropped down into the pilot’s chair and began priming the craft for travel. “Good to know,” she threw back absently.

Leonard sat in one of the open chairs, lowering the safety guard and observing her. After a moment of watching her, he narrowed his eyes. “You’re not telling me something,” he said the words firmly, no question in his tone.

“I’m feeling like taking a gamble, Leonard.” Sara glanced back at him with a wink.

The crook cooed appreciatively. “Ah, so back to Vegas? Touring Monte Carlo?”

Sara shrugged pulling the ship away from the Waverider and into the flow of the temporal zone. “Something like that,” she muttered with a smile. Leonard leaned back and looked over his nails.

“Cryptic, Lance.” He drawled in a carefully unalarmed tone.

“Don’t want to spoil the surprise, Snart.” She chimed back without missing a beat. She could feel the intensity of his stare without turning to look at him.

“Surprise?” He sounded amused more than interested.

“Surprise.” She echoed back, firmly, guiding the small craft from the temporal zone. The metal sidings shuddered at the impact when they suddenly took to time and space, but she pulled up on the throttle enough to compensate. After a few tense moments, she was landing the craft.

“This doesn’t look like the Strip.” Leonard drawled taking in the white powder on the ground and the line of fir trees outside as he straightened from his seat.

“That’s because we’re not going to Vegas.” Sara quipped back swiveling around to fix him with with a smirk.

“Explain,” his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrow arched as she straightened.

Sara shrugged, but there was a glint of something in her eye as she stood up and pulled a coat out of the storage of the closet of the Waverider. She tugged the parka on and tossed a familiar blue one to Leonard. He caught it, but didn’t move to put it on, clearly expecting some sort of answer.

“I could tell you,” she finally offered pulling a pack out and settling it over her shoulders, “or you could come and see it for yourself.”

He didn’t immediately move, and Sara thought that perhaps he wasn’t going to… that he would just sit back down in the seat and wait until she gave him the answer he wanted, but when she made it to the main door and turned to look over her shoulder— Leonard was pulling on his parka and tugging up the hood in anticipation of the cold outside.

She didn’t hesitate in palming the door sensor. The chill and flurries blew into the small craft, and she didn’t waste any time stepping out into the pristine white of the snow-covered forest floor. Her breath smoked out of her nostrils. It took her a moment to gather their direction, but after that Sara was marching toward the tree-line without any hesitation. Leonard, hands in her coat pocket, followed her with languid steps surveying the smoke-haloed pines as they walked.

“Where exactly are we?” He said after his longer strides caught up with hers.

Sara smirked up at him, adjusting the pack as they trudged up a rather steep slope. “The woods— what does it look like?”

He tossed her a sour smile, “Specifically…?”

“Just outside the Northern Cascades,” she clarified, but when he expected her to go on and explain herself, Sara fell silence.

“And why are we in the middle of the wilderness?” He asked with just the barest lilt of exasperation with her.

“We’re almost there. Patience, crook.” He had opened her mouth to continue to line of questions or to threaten to turn around, but then Sara was surging forward and cresting the hill. It took a few more minutes of silent hiking before she was pointing.

It was a cabin. Exposed logs were insulated with cemented clay, the thatched roof was covered in white, and a stone fireplace leaned jauntily with the air of being constructed by inexpert hands. Sara paused, smiling brightly at the sight of it, but Leonard merely looked at it and her with mild interest and confusion.

“A cabin?” He said with a voice heavily ladened with incredulity. “Why in the world would you think this is something I’d be interested in…?” Sara glanced at him with a wary set to her eyes.

She huffed out a steaming breath. “Come on, the fresh air isn’t going to kill you. I thought you were supposed to like the cold?” His lips firmed into a line, but followed her when she started crossing the clearing towards the quintessentially rustic cabin.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“So are we breaking in, then?” Leonard drawled trying the knob and finding it locked.

Sara kicked the snow off her boots as she looked under a piece of quartz to retrieve the key to the front door. “No need.” She opened the door with a loud creak, and stepping inside; Sara wrinkled her nose at the stagnant chilly air. She dropped the pack into a leather chair near the ash-stained fireplace.

“Fire,” she mumbled to herself and headed to the large stone hearth and snagging supplies from the neat stacks of wood and tinder beside it.

Leonard didn’t do anything as useful, instead he moved around the room and looked at the scattered objects with a critical furrow across his brow. He brushed his fingers across the table that lined the back of a leather sofa. The objects didn’t seem particularly telling, but were the sort of personal things families accumulated that had little meaning to those outside of their lives looking in…

Until his index finger brushed the dust off the top of a frame with a familiar blonde smiling. He picked up the photograph examining it closer before he was sure— and looked at Sara blowing on a match under a neat stack of tinder.

“This is your family’s cabin.” He said more of a statement then a question, photograph in his hands proof enough.

She smiled over his shoulder, “I’m impressed, it took you even less time then I thought it would…” He arched an eyebrow setting the frame back down.

“Why are we here?” Leonard narrowed his eyes and became physically much more distant, arms crossed and shoulders set.

Sara turned back to the fire, blowing on small flame to catch the rest of the tinder. Leonard’s shoulders became more square when he didn’t answer her.

“Sara.” Using her name inspired the blonde to sigh and look at him with barely concealed frustration.

“It’s my family’s cabin, like you said. We’d come here every Christmas, well— until the Gambit and the League.” Sara glanced back to the sparking tinder and grabbed a few logs to place carefully around it. “What’s the use of being able to travel through space and time if you can’t take shore leave every once and a while?” She mused absently, focusing on the task instead of the man behind her.

“… and the reason why you brought me here?” He questioned more carefully, edging a bit closer to her and admiring the competence in her actions that shouldn’t have surprised him at his point.

She huffed in defeat and settled a meaningful gaze on him.

He observed her for a moment, contemplating the options. “Mick…?” He questioned, starting to put the pieces together.

Sara nodded and slowly straightened. His eyes had turned icy, expression shuttered and cryptic, “… what did he tell you?” Leonard managed despite his jaw being tightly clenched.

“Nothing really,” she soothed, before glancing away with a shrug. “That you don’t do the whole ‘holiday’ thing.”

“And you thought you were going to… what? Change that?” He drawled cooly, as if the very idea was ridiculous. Sara huffed, moving to the pack and ignoring the sarcasm as she began pulling the heavy sack towards the open kitchen.

The whole cabin was really just one large room, though a series of paper screens half-blocked the sight of an old four-poster bed. “No, Leonard.” She said back just as cooly. “I thought you’d be the least annoying person I could bring with me to get everything ready.”

“Ready?” He couldn’t resist asking, but something in him was soothed. He took off the parka, rubbing his hands in front of the fire.

Sara walked into a closet back near the kitchen, and a few moments later the lights in the house suddenly brightened to life. “Generator still has fuel,” she said reappearing, “which will make the night much more pleasant.” She went back to putting the sparse supplies up in the practiced way of having doing the activity countless times before. “I can’t do a lot of things for my family, but when they show up in a few days and there are decorations up, cookies on the mantle, and the cabins warm and inviting— well, sounds like a decent Christmas gift to me.”

When she noticed the way Leonard was watching her, Sara paused leaning to put a can of coffee away in a cabinet. “What?”

“I didn’t expect you, of all people, to be this excited about Christmas,” he said simply, and perhaps it was just the firelight but his expression didn’t seem quite as steely.

She smiled lightly, “Oh, come on, Ebenezer. Snow, the smell of pine, cookies and little twinkle lights— what’s not to like?” Turning back to unpack the rest of the food, she tossed the rest of the bag that held a spare set of clothes and the other necessities into the sectioned off bedroom of the cabin.

It had been a rhetorical question, and one she hadn’t expected an answer to— but Leonard drawled darkly, “Not everyone’s Christmases were spent at cute little cabins, Lance. There are plenty of things not to like about the holidays…” Sara turned to catch him settling into a leather wingback near the fire, crossing his legs and looking anywhere but at her.

“Leonard…” she started, but he shot her a glance that had her falling quiet for a long series of moments, before clearing her throat and trying again. “Help me grab some boxes from shed out back?”

He rolled his eyes but stood, sighing as if terribly put-upon. “Only so we can get out of here faster.”

He followed her out of the house inhaling the crisp air and tugging back on his coat to shield him from the cold. They walked silently with Leonard taking in the high slope and evergreens that was the backdrop for the cabin. It was breathtaking, though the way his blue eyes watched the scenery seemed critical.

Until a ball of snow burst against the arm of his jacket— hard. Sara was already ducking away behind the side of the cabin’s porch banister.

His lips firmed into a hard line, clearly not amused. “Lance, what do you think you’re—“ Another snowball came flying towards him, and he had to move to dodge it.

“I’m not going to —“ He was cut off again as he moved to avoid a ball of snow, and this time he was just a little too slow and it connected with the side of his head.

“Sara!” He bit out tensely, but when another snowball came flying his way, Leonard was snatching up snow and lobbing it at the blonde when she next appeared. It grazed her arm, and earned a laugh from Sara.

Leonard ducked behind a tree, smirking as he began making up balls as Sara’s knocked harmlessly against the bark of the pine.

“Come on, crook. Hiding?” Sara called to him, losing his location in the line of trees for a moment.

Leonard threw a snowball and it collided hard, knocking Sara’s hat off and left snow clumped in her blonde hair. She blinked stunned for a moment when he called, clearly amused with himself, “It’s called strategy, assassin.”

Sara surged forward, dodging several balls when Leonard tried to knock her off her trajectory. It didn’t stop her, though, and soon she’d collided with him. The tackle had them rolling in the snow until Sara was staring down at him with a bright smile on her face.

Leonard’s own lips were pulled into a soft smirk, taking in the glint in her eye and flush on her cheeks. His hands which had come to her waist at the impact of her against him gripped a bit more firmly.

Sara’s exhilaration was tempered down by the way he looked at her, cool gaze running from her eyes to her lips and down the slope of her collarbone. She could almost feel his gaze and in some instinctual deflection Sara spoke, “How’d that strategy work out for you?”

She tried to get up, but his grip tightened against her hips enough to keep her in place hovering over him. “I’d say it worked out perfectly.” His long fingers inched up fractionally under her jacket, and Sara shivered at the remnants of snow ghosting past her protective layer. Her eyebrow arched in silent question, which only caused his smirk to widen wickedly.

When she tried to stand up again, his fingers went lax enough for her to slip through them. Sara brushed the hair out of her eyes and then knocked the snow off her clothing as Leonard lifted himself out of the snow. She watched him for a moment with a smile before tilting her head towards the shed, pleased that the thief seemed a bit more at ease.

“Come on, crook.” Sara tossed over her shoulder before walking towards it. After a moment of watching the blonde trouncing through the snow, Leonard shrugged and followed her.

There were a lot more boxes then Leonard had expected, and it took them well into the afternoon to drag them to the house and unpack them. They were full of lights, plastic candy canes, ornate and handmade ornaments, odd ceramic interpretations of Santa and reindeer which one could only assume were sculpted by children— it seemed endless.

Sara moved around him placing things where they ‘went’, occasionally some item would cause her to smile softly, or chuckle to herself, or her expression to light up with a mixture of nostalgia and memories.

Catching him watching her as she hung garland over the mantle of the fireplace, she quirked an eyebrow and offered a soft “What?”

Leonard shrugged, looking away at the fireplace.

“You could help, you know,” she quipped back, hopping down from the chair she’d been standing on.

“I’m aware,” he drawled flatly with his fingers drumming at the arm of the leather wingback he was lounging it.

Sara rolled her eyes at the blasé response, and dropped a box in his lap. “I need you to help if we’re going to get the tree done before dark.” She was just a bit surprised when Leonard stood and followed her, carrying her own boxes, without argument.

They worked quickly as the air became chillier as the light started fading. Sara ran an extension cord from the house to plug in the too-large multicolor lights and wrapped up the tree until she couldn’t reach.

“Looks like you’ve peaked, small-fry.” Leonard drawled from the tree he was leaning against, but at her glare he came to take over.

“Weave the line in and out,” she corrected gently, earning a glare from him, but Leonard corrected his technique.

When Sara opened a box of ornaments, Leonard followed her in correcting the small metal hooks and hanging the variety of shapes and colors in the tree— filling in the top of the tree where Sara couldn’t reach. When they began to reach the end of the boxes, fat flakes of snow began to drift down. Sara seemed to take on a childlike gleam as she turned her face up to the sky. Leonard found himself almost tempted to do the same, but instead hung another ornament (this one glass and in the shape of a snowman).

“I see why you brought me now,” he murmured when they stepped back and looked over the tree as the lights seemed brighter in the dim.

“Hmm?” Sara glanced over rubbing her hands together against the cold.

“There’s no way you could have reached the top without me.” He smirked at her and Sara punched his arm lightly— well, not lightly but not hard enough to do any damage.

He rubbed his arm with an appreciative ‘oo’ but his eyes held a lightness that had Sara smiling. Leonard turned walking back towards the house, but Sara grabbed his elbow to stop him.

“Wait. The star.” She reached in the box, pulling out a clearly handmade star with her free hand and held it out to him. “Would you mind?”

Leonard looked between Sara and the star with an guarded expression before shrugging, “… at this point,” he mumbled and just managed to tip the star onto the top of the tree.

Sara was beaming, despite the shiver, when Leonard turned around. He couldn’t help the small smile that pulled up the corners of his lips. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Leonard strode back towards the cabin. “Come on, assassin, before you catch a ‘chill.’”

Snorting a the pun, Sara fell in stride beside him towards the warm glow of the cabin. Beating the snow off of their boots, the two entered the cabin and relished in the warmth of the fire— Sara rubbing her extremities and placing them practically in the flames and Leonard toeing off his boots and lounging in the leather wingback he was quickly taking dominion over.

“It wasn’t that horrible, was it?” Sara asked later when she could feel her fingers and had retreated to the kitchen to wash and wrap potatoes and apples in tin foil with a bit of butter.

Leonard glanced up from the book he had snagged from the shelf that her mother had always kept stocked with rollicking adventure novels and historic nonfiction. He paused for a moment, tilting his head as if contemplating, “Mortifying,” he drawled back with a smirk before looking back down to the page.

Sara scoffed crouching down to tuck the foil-wrapped food into the embers of the fire, but whens he glanced up Leonard was watching her with a less guarded expression. “No. It wasn’t that horrible.” His words were slow, and his eyes traced over the way the fire illuminated her blonde hair.

Sara’s lips pulled slowly into a smile, glancing away from Leonard to the flames. “So, what is your deal with the holidays?” She straightened and picked her hot chocolate off of the mantle, still turned toward the fire.

Conflict warred in his eyes, but eventually he shut the book and, leaning on the arm of the chair, drawled lightly. “If you want my secrets, Lance. You’re going to have to try harder than staring absently into the fire.”

Sara turned towards him, eyebrow arched in mocking question and brushing blonde hair over her shoulder.

“You can’t do that with your face either,” Leonard drawled looking at her with a heavy-lidded gaze and then glancing away with a sigh.

“Fine.” She coached her expression into a more honest one, the picture of vague but guarded curiosity. “Better?”

“Better,” he picked up his own hot chocolate and sipped it as she came to settle in the chair adjacent to his in front of the fire. She stretched her socked feet towards the flames, but she watched him carefully— the way his eyes became distant and then conflicted, the twitch of his long fingers against the mug, the sigh that was heart-wrenching in its disinterest.

“In my family Christmas was never a real… thing. Just another day. After Lewis got back from prison, it became a worse than average day.” He glanced down at his nails before looking at her, expecting pity in her expression.

Sara, instead, was watching him with careful compassion. He cleared his throat and glanced away, “Then my mother left, and well— not a lot of reasons to celebrate something like that…”

Sensing that was as much as he intended to divulge, Sara nodded and risked reaching a hand out to settle over his own which was still drumming its fingers across the leather. Leonard froze, going stiff under her touch, and looking anywhere but at her.

Sara didn’t move her hand, instead she looked back tot he fire. After several moments of watching the wood spurt and pop, his hand lost its rigidity and then after several more, his palm turned and fingers tightened fractionally.

They sat like that for longer than either one of them would have admitted, one hand interlaced and the other holding a cup of hot chocolate with far too many mini-marshmallows.

“Merry Christmas, Leonard,” she said with a smile and a squeeze to his hand before standing up and reaching for his empty mug. Leonard’s hand, however, stopped her pursuit by wrapping around her waist and tugging her into his lap.

Sara made a small noise of surprise that had his eyes staring into hers with an appreciatively wicked gleam.

“What are you—?” The question was cut off in her throat, when his hand ghosted over her side until his fingers were tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Happy Birthday, Sara,” he murmured cupping her chin with his long fingers and drawing her lips towards his own. When Sara’s eyes fluttered closed and let him pull her in, he couldn’t help the smirk that formed as their lips collided.

When his lips slanted over her own, Sara felt a surge of electricity running through her and leaving her fingers gripping the cotton of his shirt. She responded to the languid way his lips tasted hers, explored her, tested her— and his fingers splayed over her hips and roamed over her ribs— and Sara felt a guttural groan slipping from his lips to her own.

She leaned back with a smile eyes searching his own, “You knew it was my birthday?” She managed finally with a lopsided smile.

“I know tomorrow is your birthday, “ he clarified, leaning his head back to observe her, pleased that she wasn’t immediately retreating from him.

“How?” She leaned into him with a smile, pleased with the way his arm wrapped a bit more firmly around her waist.

Leonard tilted his head with a wide smirk pulling her lips, “Gideon can be very illuminating, Sara.” His hand slid down her thigh absently, hands running over her with near reverence.

She tried to pull away and his fingers tightened, which brought her to glance down at him with thinly-veiled concern. “Len?”

When he looked back up at her, there was more emotion in his eyes then she could remember seeing. She relaxed back into his lap, but the expression still brought him to ask— “Lets just stay like this.”

She didn’t answer, instead Sara just lowered her head to the crook of his neck and let herself relax against him.

They stared into the fire. They watched as the brightness surged and then began to fade. Bit of wood caught fire, turned bright with heat and fell into the pit of ashes, and they watched resting against one another in the middle of nowhere as snow fell outside.

After what could have been hours or minutes, Sara’s breathing evened and her eyes shut as Leonard’s hand idly ran through the ends of her blonde hair. He stared at the fire longer, stretching his socked toes towards the fire, until he closed his eyes as well humming softly as he nested his chin atop Sara’s head.

They stayed together sleeping, nestled into each other’s warmth, as the snow caught in the windows silently and the fire died down to red-hot embers.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

  
Leonard stirred first, eyes slowly opening and hands roaming over the blonde nestled against him with a smirk on his face. He’d slowly roused her with a thumb brushing her chin and a kiss to her temple, chuckling when she pulled away to hide her face into his clavicle.

“Sara,” he murmured against the shell of her ear. “Wake up, Sara.”

Her turquoise eyes fluttered open and looked up at him sleepily before a smug smile pulled at her lips. “What is it, crook?”

“Someone’s outside,” he drawled without even a thread of worry in his tone. They could handle whatever it was— crook and assassin— they could handle anything the universe decided to throw at them.

When the door creaked open, Sara felt a shiver of worry roll down her spine as she glanced over the back of the oversized wingback.

Quentin Lance walked in with a blonde woman right behind him.

“Hi, daddy.” She offered weakly, glancing down to the man who still had his arms wrapped around her, “umm… this is Leonard.”   

 


End file.
